Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Cole is on a roll !

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

You are here: Home / 2017 / Archives for November 2017

Archives for November 2017

GOTV for Health this weekend

by | 45 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Maine is trying to expand Medicaid. There have been bi-partisan bills that have routinely passed both chambers of the Maine Legislature. Governor LePage (R-ME) has routinely vetoed these bills. That cycle may be broken next week as Maine has a ballot question on whether or not the state will accept Medicaid expansion.

So if you are in Maine or New Hampshire and have some time this weekend, help with the GOTV and help your fellow Mainiacs.

GOTV for Health this weekendPost + Comments (45)

Saturday Morning Easy Layups Open Thread: Three Great American Pastimes, Spoiled

by | 229 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Pizza, football, and arguing about value for money — there is nothing John Schnatter can’t make nastier. Since my life ethos has involved never living where there wasn’t adequate pizza delivery available, my only prior knowledge of “Papa John’s” involved its founder making a public fool of himself over the Affordable Care Act back in 2012…

… According to “Papa” John Schnatter, the cost of providing health insurance for all of his pizza chain’s uninsured, full-time employees comes out to about 14 cents on a large pizza. That’s less than adding an extra topping and a third the price of an extra pepperoncini. If you want that piping hot pie delivered, the $2 delivery fee will cost you 14 times as much as that health insurance price hike.

“We’re not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry,” Schnatter said on a conference call with shareholders last week, as reported by Politico. “If Obamacare is in fact not repealed, we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders’ best interests.” …

Twitter users were quick to respond to Schnatter’s latest tantrum:

David Roth, at Deadspin, “The NFL’s Stupid Pizza Wars Were Always Coming”:

… If Trump has one single accomplishment as President, it is how thoroughly he’s revealed extremely rich people as being not somehow braver or smarter or more disciplined than the rest of us but somehow exactly the opposite—consumed by pettiness, enslaved by vanity, and perfectly willing to fuck important things up in order to make some point to themselves and their rancid peers.

If you understand this, then there was nothing really that surprising about flame-retardant Italianate foodstuff impresario Papa “John” Schnatter blaming his company’s declining profits on the NFL’s inability to successfully quash its nascent protest movement. It was a little startling, of course, because of how ridiculous it was, but it was less startling than it would have been two years ago. That the statement happened to be obviously incorrect should have been taken as a given.

The speculation that Schnatter might have been put up to this gambit by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones seems like a bit much at first, until you remember that the phrase “a bit much” no longer applies. So, sure: Schnatter, the boss of the NFL’s Official Pizza Sponsor, took a shot at the leadership of the NFL commissioner at the behest of the vengeful Petro-Creature that owns the Dallas Cowboys, who is of course also Schnatter’s personal friend and an owner of at least 100 Papa John’s franchises, because the aforementioned Petro-Creature is upset about Goodell’s suspension of his star running back. Sure. Absolutely. Everything is this stupid, now…

.

AND YET IT GETS EVEN STUPIDER!

Truly, we are living in the dumbest timeline.

Saturday Morning Easy Layups Open Thread: Three Great American Pastimes, SpoiledPost + Comments (229)

Late Night {Head*Desk} Open Thread: Penetration At All Levels… of STUPID

by | 26 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , ,


.

Because — I predict — by Saturday afternoon, the Wingnutosphere will be chattering YER HERO EM-EL-KAY LOVED HIM SOME RUSSIANS, NOW WHAT, LIBS U R SO PWNED!!!

And by Sunday morning, the Bobblehead Pundits will be debating, “Was Dr. King himself a Communist plant? Why has this information only come to light now?”

(Answer: Hoover’s attempts to incriminate MLK as a filthy Commie stooge were well-known enough to be a MAD magazine joke even in the 1960s, but Bobblehead Pundits have the memory span of a particularly inbred goldfish.)

At least now we know why Liddle Lord Lardpants was tweeting so avidly about the JFK file release. I figured it was just catnip for Fox-watching conspiracy fans, but I suppose his handlers couldn’t get Trump to cooperate until they let him in on their very cunning plan…

Late Night {Head*Desk} Open Thread: Penetration At All Levels… of STUPIDPost + Comments (26)

Late Evening Open Thread: Floriduh Woman! And the Horse She Rode In On Too!

by | 76 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

The details:

After one drink too many, a four-legged animal might seem a better option than a four-wheeled vehicle.

But sadly for one Florida woman, the police did not agree – arresting her on Thursday for “drunk-driving” a horse.

Donna Byrne, 53, was arrested in Polk City, central Florida, for “DUI on a horse,” the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

Byrne is also accused of animal neglect for failing to provide proper protection for the horse, placing it at risk of injury or death while riding it along the busy road.

According to police, who were called by a passerby, Byrne appeared intoxicated when officers arrived on the scene.

“Ms Byrne was obviously not in any condition to be on the road. She not only put herself and the horse in danger, but also anyone who was driving on the road, which is typically very busy,” Sheriff Grady Judd said.

The horse was taken to a sheriff’s office animal shelter.

I really don’t want to know what this is referring to:

Byrne is also accused of animal neglect for failing to provide proper protection for the horse, placing it at risk of injury or death while riding it along the busy road.

Remember folks friends don’t let friends drink and canter.

Late Evening Open Thread: Floriduh Woman! And the Horse She Rode In On Too!Post + Comments (76)

Russiagate Open Thread: Telling Them What They Wanted to Hear

by | 240 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , ,

Waiting for this week’s Friday Doc Dump? I nominate this as a strong contender: The GOP used deceptively edited emails to help them steal the election.

… An Associated Press investigation into the digital break-ins that disrupted the U.S. presidential contest has sketched out an anatomy of the hack that led to months of damaging disclosures about the Democratic Party’s nominee. It wasn’t just a few aides that the hackers went after; it was an all-out blitz across the Democratic Party. They tried to compromise Clinton’s inner circle and more than 130 party employees, supporters and contractors.

While U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia was behind the email thefts, the AP drew on forensic data to report Thursday that the hackers known as Fancy Bear were closely aligned with the interests of the Russian government.

The AP’s reconstruction— based on a database of 19,000 malicious links recently shared by cybersecurity firm Secureworks — shows how the hackers worked their way around the Clinton campaign’s top-of-the-line digital security to steal chairman John Podesta’s emails in March 2016…

Guccifer 2.0 acted as a kind of master of ceremonies during the summer of leaks, proclaiming that the DNC’s stolen documents were in WikiLeaks’ hands, publishing a selection of the material himself and constantly chatting up journalists over Twitter in a bid to keep the story in the press.

He appeared particularly excited to hear on June 24 that his leaks had sparked a lawsuit against the DNC by disgruntled supporters of Clinton rival Bernie Sanders.

“Can it influence the election in any how?” he asked a journalist with Russia’s Sputnik News, in uneven English.

Later that month Guccifer 2.0 began directing reporters to the newly launched DCLeaks site, which was also dribbling out stolen material on Democrats. When WikiLeaks joined the fray on July 22 with its own disclosures the leaks metastasized into a crisis, triggering intraparty feuding that forced the resignation of the DNC’s chairwoman and drew angry protests at the Democratic National Convention…

Guccifer 2.0, WikiLeaks and DCLeaks ultimately published more than 150,000 emails stolen from more than a dozen Democrats, according to an AP count.

The AP has since found that each of one of those Democrats had previously been targeted by Fancy Bear, either at their personal Gmail addresses or via the DNC, a finding established by running targets’ emails against the Secureworks’ list.

All three leak-branded sites have distanced themselves from Moscow. DCLeaks claimed to be run by American hacktivists. WikiLeaks said Russia wasn’t its source. Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be Romanian.

But there were signs of dishonesty from the start. The first document Guccifer 2.0 published on June 15 came not from the DNC as advertised but from Podesta’s inbox, according to a former DNC official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The official said the word “CONFIDENTIAL” was not in the original document.

Guccifer 2.0 had airbrushed it to catch reporters’ attention…

This should be a big honkin’ story… but I suspect it will get buried under a weekend’s worth of OMG WHAT TRUMP JUST SAID IN ASIA. Here’s hoping Mueller’s people are less distractible!

Russiagate Open Thread: Telling Them What They Wanted to HearPost + Comments (240)